Andrew Fox is a former Major in Britain's armed forces, who served three combat tours in Afghanistan. He posted this tweet a few days ago. I've taken the liberty of reproducing it in full.
I gave a presentation this morning, partly about Afghanistan. On the drive home it set me thinking.
My hunch is that part of the reason for Western protests about Gaza is a total failure to understand what urban war is, and what it looks like, and people are horrified to see it. Totally understandable. Now couple that to a powerful disinformation campaign that exploits those feelings of horror and tells them what they’re seeing and can’t comprehend (urban war) is something else (genocide).
As a commander in Afghanistan on my first two tours, which were before the “counterinsurgency” era, I saw my job as being to apply maximum violence to kill the enemy legally within rules of engagement. If I had a Harrier or an A-10 or an Apache to call on, I’d use that as a first option. If not, I’d use mortars or Javelin or machine guns if I had them. Only as a last resort would I commit my rifle sections.
That’s war. And that’s what Israel is fighting, on a far more brutal scale. Hamas and the surrounding Iranian proxies are an existential threat to Israel’s existence as a country. It’s that which people in the West fail to understand. We’re used to expeditionary wars of choice on the other side of the world. Israel has kibbutzim 5km from where their troops are fighting. The IDF in Gaza can look over their shoulders and see their home. It’s a totally different perspective on war from the one we in the West are used to.
Hamas have to be deleted as a fighting force for Israel to survive as a country with safe borders. To achieve that is the single most basic function of government. This isn’t a war Israel wants but it’s one they’ve been forced to fight. They’ve already taken double the fatalities the British did in Afghanistan and Iraq combined.
If they wanted to, they could stand off with jets, and hit Gaza City and Khan Younis and Rafah simultaneously and level the place - and legally. If it’s a military target and you can justify the collateral damage, the law of armed conflict says that’s legal. That Israel hasn’t done that tells you all you need to know about whether this is a genocide or not.
I don’t blame people for being sucked in by disinformation about Gaza. It’s been sophisticated and effective information warfare. I have no limits to my contempt for those who throw around “genocide” when they know perfectly well it isn’t. The most serious of crimes shouldn’t be debased like that, and shame on South Africa and their allies who have abused international law in this way.
War is horrifying, brutal, and extremely violent. Gaza isn’t a conventional counter-terror campaign. We saw on 7 October how well armed, organised and tactically aware Hamas are. They use human and humanitarian shields. They’ve forced Israel into the only appropriate response, and it’s the innocents in Gaza who suffer. That the numbers of innocents injured and killed is so low is a testament to the IDF using tactics that have incurred far higher IDF casualties than other options on the table.
“War is hell” is a cliche for a reason. But it’s nothing more than a war that we see in Gaza.
That's the military reality of the situation in Gaza at resent. It's a war. It's not a "peace mission" or a "genocide" or an "occupation" at all. Israel was attacked, and now it's defending itself in the only way possible - by removing the attackers and the threat they represent. That's a very harsh reality . . . but it is reality. To pretend otherwise is stupid.
Peter
32 comments:
Stop talking common sense.
You'll annoy the people who can't hear you over the sound of the "JOOOOOOOOOOOOOSS!! dog whistles constantly sounding in their own heads.
Which, like trying to teach a pig to whistle, wastes your time, and annoys the pig.
You're not wrong, but the connection between the protests against the war and the actual physical on-the-ground results of the war, are not connected in any way shape or form. You have to grok that, or your entire paradigm will serve to blind you, not guide you. That's not accidental.
They have interview many protestors at these events. They don't even know why they are protesting. Go find the twitter thread, it's hilarious! They are there because their professors and peers in the indoctrination universities TOLD them to go there and protest. They don't even know what violence is happening, what river and sea are used in that slogan, nor what that slogan actually means. They're stupid, mal-educated, manipulated sheeple.
You don't see any trade-school students at these protests, do you? No, just rich liberal democrat's kids.
They're the brown-shirts of today, and too stupid to realize it.
They are being drummed up to protest to sew chaos and disrupt normal life (just like ANTIFA and BLM). They are allowed to disrupt normal life by the police because the people in charge WANT the strife and chaos, so they can enact even more tyrannical laws which violate The Constitution, as the citizenry begs for safety. Cloward-Pliven Communist doctrine 1 oh fucking 1. Jesus, does anybody read the memes with more than 3 words on them?
THE FACT HALF OUR COUNTRY IS TOO FUCKING STUPID TO SEE THAT IS THE REAL PROBLEM WE'RE FACING RIGHT NOW!!!!!!
The kids can't find Palestine on a Map, but they're protesting for those people? Fucking morons can't even tell when they're being manipulated by propaganda, and the other half sits by watching thinking its legit, organic, and NOT entirely funded by Soros.
Gawd, I'm starting to think we do need to thin the herd? Most folks are just plumb stupid.
I have good friends that have gradually come to the hate Israel for all the "killing the babies" stuff that is all over the media. I have tried to explain that it's hard to see what choice Israel has and that this is how war is conducted. from what I can see israel is really bending over backwards to minimize casualties.
Honestly my personal perception from just a casual knowledge of what has happened there. Has made me feel as the leadership in Israel have abdicated their responsibilities in how mild their response has been down the years. As ex military my opinion is very in line with this article. It is pragmatic and what the real world really is like.
We took down 2 countries over 2001 which I don't believe was merited. We should have leveled the offending parties in afganistan and just walked away. Iraq was a political choice mostly unrelated to 9/11. If were really wanted to go after someone more responsible it would have been Saudi Arabia.
I do think that Israel once most of the civilians have left is doing their best to leave a parking lot behind that is uninhabitable to move this situation in the future farther away from their borders, and I can't really blame them.
I just took a look at a few timelines of terrorist attacks over the years there. it is horrifying. I would not have been as nice a person as their leadership has been over the years based on that. Here a few of the links documenting the thousands of casulties done week by week and month by month to Israel over the last many many years. Also this is in a place the size of New Jersey. These people have lived in a war zone for more than 70 years.
https://www.johnstonsarchive.net/terrorism/terrisrael.html
https://www.gov.il/en/pages/wave-of-terror-october-2015
https://embassies.gov.il/MFA/FOREIGNPOLICY/Terrorism/Palestinian/Pages/Suicide%20and%20Other%20Bombing%20Attacks%20in%20Israel%20Since.aspx
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/major-palestinian-terror-attacks-since-oslo
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/comprehensive-listing-of-terrorism-victims-in-israel
The Israelis probably ought to have responded by leveling the entire place TBH. The only way to convince the Gazans to stop supporting Hamass is death in sufficiently large amounts that they realize there's no way to survive continuing to fight.
Mr. Turner has a point. Just level the damned thing and your problems go far away. It's what we should be doing to Washington, DC. But there are always the whiners, the hand wringers, and falsely chaste who want to keep "fighting fairly". It's a war and it should be conducted as war. I just don't want Americans dying for another country.
Yes, and the "harsh reality" of the Trail of Tears (and the rest of the Indian wars) is that the Indians had to be exterminated to keep them from attacking the Americans occupying their land. It's war. Anyone objecting was either too softhearted, or stupid. Treaties don't matter, only might and power do. Did I do it right?
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Most of the people in Gaza are there because the Israelis ethnically cleansed them from their own land after the Allies unilaterally gave a chunk of it to a bunch of European colonists. And I guarantee that they've slaughtered people with a more solid genetic link to Abraham than Bibi could ever claim to possess.
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And it's kind of hilarious using Afghanistan as an example. Another country we had no business being in, and our occupation accomplished literally nothing, other than giving Afghani pedophiles a 20 year break from execution by the Taliban.
It looks a lot like the "protests" supporting the Hamas/Muslim Brotherhood competition with the mullahs in Iran over who gets to murder more Jews were coordinated by people who knew that a big operation was about to start.
The protesters that live in comfort, have monetary resources, are easily duped, and never had a day where survival was the only option, won't ever understand, unless they're treated like the rabid coyotes they mimic.
There are no innocent Muslims over the age of 8. Those under that age are under the protection and responsibility of their parents, who are most definitely hostile to absolutely everybody else in the entire world. Their moon god commands them so to be.
It's a shame to say it, but nits make lice. Palestinians consider their sons to be replacements and reinforcements, and their daughters to be resources for the production of future generations of fighters.
The folks in Gaza are there because their forefathers attacked the newly established nation of Israel as it was still being formed. If they hadn't, they would have kept their homes, like the Muslims that didn't fight did. 21% of Israelis are Muslim.
Jews were emigrating to the area after WWI, with a fair amount of conflict happening. During WWII, the Muslims went for the Axis, with a lot of sabotage and banditry in Palestine. Setting up the state of Israel was a way to punish their behavior, and the British didn't want to deal with the place any more.
Might makes right when it comes to nations. I can only say that the Muslims were treated better than they treated the Jews, before and since.
"Our side does not perpetrate war crimes"
Ask "Bomber" Harris.
"might makes right when it comes to nations"
Yes. Which is why Mao's Cultural Revolution was absolutely right. He had the Might to do it, so it was Right, in terms of nations, of course.
And if the Palestinians suddenly gain an enormous amount of Might, and successfully expel the occupiers from their ancestral lands...you'll say that's Right, too, no?
Let us all revel in the blood of the genocide we commit to further glorify the genocide of another. Your soul turns dark.
War is hell. There is no other war type. Anything else is just an ineffective police action.
Potatoes, Pot-tahos.
Once can argue forever about it. It IS WAR.
However, it's Israels war and we should step back and "See God Save HIS precious People". Or Not given how often its recorded in the Bible how God ALLOWED the People of Israel to be destroyed in combat, enslaved and dispersed into slavery to be rebuilt later.
We have NO DOG in the fight if we read the History of God and the Jews as described in the whole of the bible (not one oft parroted verse).
I've read the Koran and I know a fair bit of the 5 pillars of Islam.
They are a CLEAR and Present Threat. Islam means Submission, and they mean everybody must submit to Allah as they see him. Life for non-Muslims is pretty rude and nasty ranging from extra "non-believer Taxes" to fund Islam, to "the taking" of unbeliever men and women for pleasure and destruction.
It's in their Koran that you are ALLOWED to LIE to the infidel and FAKE Friendship for a time UNTIL you can enslave-convert them.
There are no "Good Muslims" as in friendly neighbor sorts. Either they are fulfilling the Koran's commands "When weak, it is PERMITTED to Lie and Feign Friendship with the Infidels until you are strong" OR they are In Islam BAD Muslims and required to fulfill their faith or be punished as infidel.
AND it seems we have a huge number of College "Educated" Useful IDIOTS running around with signs that "Allah LOVES Diversity" and such, despite the facts they kill gays and perverts in the streets.
We ARE in Heinlein's "Crazy Years".
"To pretend otherwise is stupid". Problem is VAST numbers of "people"...I use the term loosely...ARE stupid. Amazingly, deeply irredeemably stupid. And we allow them to drive, breed and vote. Which calls into question the sanity of our entire society.
Fun fact? There's an incredibly large population of devout Christians in Gaza. One of the most ancient Christian communities still surviving today. Nobody ever mentions them when they talk about slaughtering them all efficiently. These people have a Christian faith that survived the Ottomans. But it's not going to survive the "Israelites" who have no real connection to the people of the Kingdom of Judah from whom our Lord and King Christ Jesus came. And millions of "Christians" are cheering on their slaughter. God isn't fooled by rhetoric, or appeals to practicality. He knows men's hearts. If you couldn't bayonet a toddler, and then stand in the presence of the almighty unashamed, then you really have no business spewing your murderous fantasies on the internet, do you? Go to confession, and pray.
Given that your first statement is extremely incorrect--while there are Christians in Gaza, their numbers both in absolute and relative terms are tiny, and Israel's Christian population is larger both relatively and absolutely--I will file your uninformed moral outrage in the appropriate bin.
RE: turn Gaza into a parking lot/nits make lice/no innocent Muslims--yeah, that's actual war crimes. Let's not do that.
That having been said, the person who compared the Jewish settlement of Palestine to America's westward expansion is right for the wrong reasons--both mostly involved people looking to make a better life for themselves, some people did some really bad stuff, and neither one could be called "genocide" by any stretch of the imagination.
To sum it all up, yes we can still be persuaded to burn witches. Humanity might wear a robe of "civilization". But in the end many would just as soon keep wearing thier loincloth.
SPOT ON!!!!!
Hahha, winner winner chicken dinner! I'm certain they would say the same if it happened to Israel. Yup, fer shhhuuuurre....
"With God on our side", Dylan, Bob.
Increasingly certain we want absolutely NOTHING to do with the whole situation. Let them spend their own blood & treasure on killing each other. Not one drop of US or Commonwealth blood and not one cent towards it. Enough is enough and it is NOT OUR PROBLEM. We have no access to info on the real situation on the ground - the media & govts will only tell us narratives.
My biggest concern is these fools may bring their stupid conflicts to our lands. The moment they try - export the whole family root & branch back to the Middle East to settle their differences over there. The lefties will wail, but the message will be broadcast loud & clear. Leave the rest of the world out of your rose fertiliser.
I know this sounds simplistic but we just had a Christian minister stabbed multiple times live on camera, mid-sermon by someone screaming about allahs snackbar. He got out of there alive (this time). Imagine if it was a mullah who was stabbed in the face by a Christian screaming God is Good. Would he have escaped alive???? This is the sort of carp my country has to look forward to now. Thanks to our secret strength, “diversity”. Nip it in the bud before it escalates.
in re the "anonymous" commenters:
"verrrry interesting"
Idk where the previous commenter was coming from, but after reading their comment I did some googling, and I'd expected maybe a few dozen to a hundred christians in Gaza. In comparison to that, learning that there's over 1,000, and there used to be over 3,000...seems pretty damn incredibly large to me. And I have no idea what the numbers of Christians being smaller than your opinion of what "large" means has to do with being allowed to be outraged by other Christians celebrating and approving or encouraging killing them. If someone was outraged that someone else murdered "all your children!" and it turned out only one of your kids was murdered, would you "bin" that "uninformed moral outrage" too? OP may have overstated the size of the group, in your opinion, but your objection to their dismay and disapproval on that basis is beyond ridiculous.
OP: "I can't believe we nuked three Japanese cities! How horrible!"
you: "We only nuked two! Your objection is therefore worthless!"
Ridiculous.
Srsly? The word "race" in its current form exists because the guy who coined it had a plan to systematically extirpate Amerindian genetics from the population. There's literally no modern scholar who would object to calling the campaign to suppress the American Indian peoples a genocide. They might object to descriptions of intent, but results and the intent of some of the perpetrators is indisputable.
Your inability to distinguish between "someone had plans to do genocide" and "genocide" explains a lot.
"Your inability to distinguish between "someone had plans to do genocide" and "genocide" explains a lot."
Peter loves those 'chosen people' more than America itself.
@Anonymous at 9:29AM: Please don't put words in my mouth or thoughts in my head. In this case, both are incorrect. You don't speak for me.
Of course they can't find Palestine on a map - it doesn"t exist!
The IDF has bent over backwards trying to appease the U.N., which should SHOULD be saying "Please do not use nuclear weapons, but do what you have to to protect your country" and then keep their mouths shut.
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